The problems endemic to the global fashion supply chain are well known. The production of fabrics like denim and cotton are highly resource intensive. Not only that, but the rise of fast fashion has made supply chains move faster. As a result, designers prioritise speed over sustainability, amplifying the wastefulness of the industrial scale clothing manufacturing.
Unspun, a startup founded by three Stanford graduates, is developing a new manufacturing technique. They hope the new method, 3D weaving, will cut down waste in apparel manufacturing. The end goal: to shorten supply chains, reduce waste, and help make fashion more sustainable.
Waste lots, want lots — the fast fashion supply chain
The fashion industry’s manufacturing practices and supply chains have a famously tenuous relationship with many brands’ sustainability rhetoric. Many major clothing retailers have sourcing practices that are at least somewhat damaging to the climate. And this problem gets worse the faster and more affordable the items being sold become. The fashion industry produces approximately 2-3% annual carbon emissions worldwide, putting it in similar territory to commercial aviation (2-3%) and data centres (2.5% to 3.7%).
Apparel manufacturing is a wasteful enterprise. Making a single cotton shirt consumes approximately 2,700 litres of water. Approximately 20% of the world’s industrial wastewater pollution comes from the fashion industry. Of all the clothing thrown away across the world, 57% is sent to landfill. Another 25% is incinerated.
Not only are fabrics like denim and cotton water-intensive to produce, but turning them into clothes also creates inefficiencies. “Business as usual in fashion is a massive waste. It means squandering scraps of fabric when making garments,” Unspun’s webpage argues, discussing the company’s impact. Unspun also highlights that the fast fashion industrial manufacturing process also means “making too many of those garments and disposing of what isn’t sold. It even means making garments to be disposable, thrown in the bin at the end of their use. All while burning fossil fuels to power a labyrinthine global supply chain.”
Unspun and 3D weaving — a different way
Unspun is an interesting new startup — one which is often misrepresented in the media thanks to confusion over its two similar, but separate, business models. Co-founded by Stanford graduates Walden Lam, Kevin Martin, and Beth Esponnette, Unspun is bringing multiple new manufacturing techniques to the fashion business. The first utilises 3D scanning technology to manufacture custom jeans.
The second, 3D weaving, combines the textile weaving process with the making of the garment itself. This makes the process significantly more efficient, according to Unspun co-founder Walden Lam, who explains that 3D weaving conserves materials, consumes less energy and emits fewer greenhouse gases. “Our mission is to reduce the global human carbon footprint by 1%,” Lam told the South China Morning Post earlier this year. “Depending on which information source you trust, that would mean influencing a pretty significant portion of the industry – about a quarter to a third, and we need to do it quickly.”
- Sourcing & Procurement
- Sustainability
